Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Post reported this past Friday that top NYPD officials convened for "an emergency summit" to address "a surprise spike in robberies citywide."

Robberies jumped 29 percent between Oct. 11 and Oct. 17 compared to the same week last year, and overall are up 4.7 percent this year, according to police statistics.

At the meeting today, Chief of Department Joseph Esposito, the highest ranking uniformed officer, and Chief of Operations Patrick Timlin are expected to grill the heads of the NYPD's eight borough commands, detective borough chiefs and housing and transit borough chiefs, the sources said.

A police spokesperson told the Post that "the spike's attributable mainly to young robbers, teens and preteens, taking cellphones and other personal electronic devices."

According to the crime stats from the 9th Precinct, there were seven robberies reported the week of Oct. 11-Oct. 17, up four from the same time period last year. The number of reported felonious assaults increased from three to six. For the year, however, the number of robberies has decreased by 3.2 percent over last year while the number of felonious assaults have increased by 3.3 percent. (Compared to 1990, the number of robberies in the East Village is down 80 percent.)

This past Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, a command post for members of the Manhattan South Task Force, who are assigned to the East Village, was parked on Avenue A along Tompkins Square Park. We've heard about several cases of wilding in the Park the last few weeks. Privately, we've heard that the NYPD is quite concerned about the recent wilding attacks in the East Village — enough so for a Command Center to be established. On background, one NYPD rep said there have been nine reported wilding cases in the East Village in the last month.

50 comments:

As the gap between the haves and the have nots grows wider crime is going to keep going up and real estate values will go down in the neighborhood. For the most part I believe these attacks are being done by neighborhood kids who believe they have no future and their problems are not being addressed by the politicians and others in the LES who look down on them and could care less about what happens to these youth. Sending these kids to Rikers Island or Iraq and Afghanistan is the government's solution and instead of spending the money on jobs,after school programs and education those in control will build more jails for them. Over the last week or so a dialogue has been going on here over this which was started by the Halloween protest I am organizing and I hope those who are powerful and have money and property in the LES will think about the kids who are poor and have little chance in the future as the economic situation gets worse. Either spend the money to help them have a future or they are going to going to, out of anger and frustration, try to rob you and take your money and lovwer the value of the real estate you now own in the LES.

I disagree with the previous poster. You can grow up without a pot to piss in and not turn into a thug. It's all about the parents and these thugs have shitty parents. If I so much looked at someone the wrong way on the bus my mom whacked me on the backside of the head. I learned not to be a bully and not to take what wasn't mine.

The only thugs I've been beaten by on the Lower East Side were NYPD officers trying to break the back of the neighborhood so an army of rich a**holes could move in and jack the whole neighborhood. They shut down the park, destroyed the bandshell, send armored personnel carriers against squats and priced out the entire creative element that doesn't work in finance or receive a trust fund.

Some kids robbed the upper class bums who think the East Village is a public toilet? My heart bleeds. Maybe they should go party in their suburban homes and leave the city. Maybe kids who don't have $400 for shoes aren't the problem, and maybe ripping off a few iPods is some small semblance of redistributive justice.

To Anonymous, I say, Don't blame the children for the faults of the parents. Or their parents. Or their parents' parents. Into perpetuity. Which means, the problems are SYSTEMIC. Some people who don't have a pot to piss in will lay down like a cowlick and go with the greasy flow. Others will rebel and maybe make a difference. Others still will randomly strike out in anger against the capital "F" FOE. (Read Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child.) But I digress. Simply to say, It's hard to predict how a blossom forms or malforms. And so rather than blanketly condemn the victims (i.e. the lost children), let's approach the system and make IT right. For starters, let's stop being afraid of each other, angry at each other and violent toward each other--and look to the system for the faults. And of course, act to change it.

@AnonymousAre you the same Anonymous that posted on the whole Halloween Tompkins Square post and the We Freaks will be here to Forgive you post?

This Anonymous thing is annoying... Make up a name for god's sake please be somebody...

If you aren't then all of you Anonymous posters must think the same way... Reeking with privilege and oozing an unrighteous misdirected anger at anything that might make you uncomfortable...

By the way wilding is when a bunch of kids go running through an area doing whatever the fuck they please... Making noise, running rough shot over anything and everyone... You know youthful rebellious stuff... You remember that don't you? Of course sometimes wilding crosses the line into unlawfulness but most of the time it's kids blowing off steam...

And i agree with John... There is no future for these kids... Shit there's no future for you Anonoymous you just don't want to read the writing on the wall... And yes there's no future for me either...

BUt many of us won't completely believe that until it's an article in the Style section of the NY TImes...

Part of t5he problem is also with these clueless yokels who come down here to party - they've only heard how "safe" NY is and don't remember it in the glory days of the 70s - mid-90s, so wander around hammered at 3 AM flashing their jewelry and pricey hardware, never thinking that a nabe as "trendy" and "happening" as the EV might also contain some less trendy elements.

I'm so sick and tired of libs talking about the gap between the 'have's and have nots' ... when a lot of the problems in society start with the gap between women's legs who won't stop spitting out unwanted kids left and right to become wasted members of society. My mother worked two jobs, and some even part time side jobs and I started working at 14 JUST so we wouldn't have to get food stamps and start the slide into coddled welfare wastes....Everything I have I've worked for and even tho still paying taxes its never enough and still have to hear about "redistribution of wealth" or "redistributive justice." bullshit

I agree that the system is awful and systemic problems lead to poverty, hopelessness, and eventually violence, but assuming that those who were robbed are "upper class bums who think the East Village is a public toilet" seems both extreme and unfair. It's true that the kids living in poverty are victims of the system - but the people who got robbed and stabbed are victims too. Have a little bit of sympathy, and for all you know they could be your neighbors, artists, teachers, etc, lots of those people own ipods too!

Over the past year, there have been revelations that the NYPD had been severely underreporting and downgrading the crimes that were reported in order to show improving crime statistics. Since then, my understanding is that at least some of this underreporting/misclassification has tended, which may explain at least part of the perceived increase in crime across the city this year.

In addition, the weekly crime stats from a single neighborhood seem like too small of a sample size from which to draw any definitive conclusion. For example, on an absolute level, three additional robberies in the EV is not that many. But on a percentage basis, it sounds like a huge jump. (And, as Grieve notes, robberies are slightly down over the course of the year.) I'm not saying there *isn't* a trend, but it just seems like we need more evidence before we can be certain of what the trend is.

Bullies are bullies and they come from all socio-economic groups. Blaming poverty for creating bullies is an insult to the majority of poor people who aren't bullies. As a gay person I have been harassed by the thugs in the East Village for the three decades I've lived here. They are rotten apples and they don't represent all poor people. Stop blaming the system. Teenagers are old enough to know it isn't right to rob, harass, beat up and even kill people.

How hard can dealing with the young criminals who hang out in the park be? I'm pretty sure I've seen the kids in question several times (there seem to be two groups) scouting out people with phones and lurking around the edges of the park. I don't recognize them, they don't seem to be park regulars, but I'm not the only person to notice them. They stand out because, well, they don't act like civilians, they act people who are out to rob someone. Any cop who got to know the park well enough would know what's what. Are there no beat cops in the park? Why can't a cop or two stay in the park long enough to respond immediately when something goes down? Argh.

Shut up Hooker What kind of work were you doing at 14 ? How much did you charge ? With a name like that I think you should have joined the Girl's Club instead of hooking ? I feel bad for someone who had to sell their ass at 14. Foodstamps probably would have stopped you from having to do that. Shut Up Shut Up Hooker you are a bad example to our kids.

It's incredible how so many of the so called anarchists and rebels of the EV want to actually see an increase in murder and mayhem, as if they are somehow exempt from the carnage. Most ( not all ) of these rebels spend all day,everyday getting wasted in the park. I've lived here for 23 years and most of the freaks have never actually contributed ANYTHING to this community, other than turning TSP into an open air flophouse.I love the old EV with all my heart and soul, and mourn it's disappearance everyday, but wishing a surge in murder, rape and armed assault on the community definitely shows you don't give a rat's ass about it.I've also seen the young "thugs" in TSP, and yes, some are good kids with too much time on their hand looking to blow off steam. But a smaller percentage are NOT just good kids. There are rotten apples, and no amount of after school programs and job training is going to stop them from engaging in mayhem. Armed assault and robbery is not youthful exuberance. It's hard, criminal behaviour, and it requires more than sermonizing to stop it. I want the bankers and brkers to leave as much as anyone, but a spike in felonies is not the answer, and it shouldn't be applauded.

I blows my mind that anyone would be against this. This isn't here just because some rich kid got an ipod stolen. It's because enough people have gotten robbed that the city is actually doing something--which says a lot in itself. All people, despite their financial status, deserve to be protected from thuggery, robbery, assault and all the other bullshit we're exposed to on an all-too-regular basis. I don't want the EV to be Pleasantville, but I don't want a state of mayhem either.

Aww poor little asshole making stupid jokes... bagged groceries at 14 and the 'hooker' part of my screen name refers to what I do on a rugby team, nothing even remotely sexual. Not unlike your mother & the reason you are here. So a transplant like yourself can shut the fuck up and return back to whatever suburb you came from.

I hope the NYPD puts out a campaign letting folks know that those who display their ipods and cellphones are the ones most at risk for getting robbed... cuz I could REALLY use a break from all the vapid, annoying yuppies and hipsters screaming their nasal, "But um"s and "Like"s into their phones while walking down the street!!!

stayed away from e.vil on the www 'til just now.Sad truth, the area, writing area cuz no longer is there a neighborhood...can't say when was no longer a neighborhood, tho perhaps when a squatter wanted to sell their home for more than market value...sad truth that yah, I am anon cuz when I went far out of my way to befriend a homeless gent who died this summer, I LOST ALL MY FRIENDS, EVEN SQUAT ROTSyep, they chilled on me big time, sad to say that the bones left for pickin are any one's desire in the spangy hostile frontier of the NEW e.vil.it's all over friends....we didn't coalesce in the '80s-'90s to represent ourselves as what we are cuz we can't. We still are happy, riotous, moving on people. Those of us who don't need ego condoms.F the ipods. The can get stolen anywhere.Kids get screwed by their parents everywhere, and the system coulda been humped by us when we hadthe chance, ala '80s -'90s. Nobody wanted to do the hard work, and those of us who tried got called posers.Ahhh, furgetaboutit.There are families who don't need the glory doing their thing in the e.vil. The kids are going to school in the hood and having a good ole time not worrying about what 20/20 says on ABC. Get over ourselves.Anon

We don't want to go back to the days when the bullies ran the East Village. In the 80s and into the 90s there was plenty of wilding around here and it was terrifying. These gangs of kids were beating up everyone, male, female, black, white, Puerto Rican, young, old. I support anything the cops do to make sure we don't have to live through that again.

Grew up on Ave D with the animals. My mother didnt want us to be like the garbage on the street (whoring @13 yrs old, doing drugs and dropping out of school). Please do not excuse and exncourage the low-lifes to fail. They fail because they want excuses and they have parents who never wanted them or cared in the first place. Fuck the low-lifes and the next one who comes at me will learn what I learned on Ave D..Dont Take shit from anyone, Cause I dont Owe anyone anything (except for one beautiful person).

Memo to John Penley. You are living in a delusional pseudo-liberal world. My advice? Wear your postings on a large plackard on the front and back of youe shirt as you stroll down Ave A/B/C/D on Holloween night. i Guarantee you get your ass kicked and hit with the mamalochies as yo are surrounded by a horde of the lowlifes who you wish to protect/excuse. I'll wait for your postings the day after if you get off easily.

response to penley 9:22 am: i lived in the EV in the late 60s. i never heard of you. im also a published photographer, i wear $400 shoes & $1000 boots. i dressed up in the old days as well, even more than i do now. its my business what i do w/my $. i dont own a i pod, but thats besides the point. after reading your posts, i am on the side of the kids you hate. after reading many of the similar posts, i really hope they take down that park. you are just an old jealous & really evil no body. the LES was for families from east europe.

Mr. Penley's last post proves he's more of an attention seeking agitator than a real community activist. The developers and yuppies are bad, but nowhere near as bad as thugs and criminals. The sad fact is that so called activists like John never had an impact on crime back in the 80's and 90's. Whole buildings and neighborhoods were held hostage by gangs and thugs running wild, and the so called anarchist rebels were powerless to stop it. The average felon is no more a victim of " the system " than any one of us, they're simply too stupid and selfish to try and contribute anything positive, they just lash out at the people around them in a vain attempt to " get mine ".And of course anyone who doesn't want to go back to the days of wanton violence is called a supporter of yuppies and development.BULLSHIT !!!You can love the old EV without loving murder and mayhem.It's not an either/or choice.So let Mr. Penley go back to screaming about the "system" with his crusty compatriots. Meanwhile, those who truly love the EV will fight gentrification AND violence the best we can.

One of my high school friends who grew up in the Bronx left NY for good in the late 80's after he was a victim of wilding in the West Village. I think the term must have been invented by the NY Post who reported on it quite regularly back then. (Or maybe it was the News? Or Both.)

Disenfranchised youth have never gone away but our media forgot about them while the rich white Wall Street people were robbing us instead of the cellphone stealing kids. Remember when 8-ball leather jackets and sneakers were the desired items? Remember the spate of chain snatching thieves that dominated the headlines for a while?

We've had this veneer of safety in NY for the past few years (because of the way the cops juke the stats? maybe? a majority of white people make other white people feel safer? fewer windshield wiping men on the streets? who knows...) The people who've recently moved here will have to learn for themselves based on experience how to navigate safely, not because someone else tells them not to leave their laptop and purse on the table while they go to the bathroom.

Let me refresh everyones memory as this post has became extremely long and like a gossip game became totaly exagerated and the true comment muted.Penley wrote in an early post :" Sending these kids to Rikers Island or Iraq and Afghanistan is the government's solution and instead of spending the money on jobs,after school programs and education those in control will build more jails for them. " My response, Jail and prisons are big buisness to the government. The inmates work for pennies and do all the dirty work. 70 percent of the prison inmates in the United States are illiterate.Coincidence?I don't think so.In my opinion, "wilding" got popular in the late 80's as yet another scare tactic of mass media trying to create widespread panic as a tool to control its occupents."wildings" is just another scarey word for the hypnotized T.V. veiwers to freak out about.I think it's a good excuse for them to put up extra patrols in the area they target. Caleo...I need to ask you a question....What area of LES EV did you remember?????Caleo wrote:"so called activists like John never had an impact on crime back in the 80's and 90's. Whole buildings and neighborhoods were held hostage by gangs and thugs running wild, and the so called anarchist rebels were powerless to stop it. " I have to correct you...There were whole buildings in EV that were squatted. The buildings were delapetated but for over 10 years at least were occupied by new yorkers that actually improved upon the neighborhood and brought up the reale state markets.The buildings ...if left to be vacent would have never been able to be standing where they do today...if not for the people that lived there putting their own sweat and tears into repairing the roofs and making a livable space. There were neighborhood gardens replacing the needle filled lots. The "gangs" were the government because they threatened everything EV was built on. Local buisnesses, old residence, immegrints and their families built the area up just to become victims of gentrification.families with children living in a community and making the neighborhood a safer place. This is for everybody in this discussion...must we resort to name calling? It really takes away from the point of the matter.

I love how some people believe criminals base all their wrong doing on social injustice. As if they get up in the morning and say, "No one has given me any handouts lately. I need to rob and assault someone today so that the world will be a better place." Pathetic. "Rich" or "poor", it doesn't matter. Always blaming the other guy, no matter which side you happen to be on. This world is doomed.

Melomahem- you need to clear the cobwebs from your brain and organize your thoughts.Your question/response to me doesn't make alot of sense, but I'll try to respond.I clearly stated I miss the old LES, but I was addressing the fact that many comments seemed to take pleasure in the spike in assault/robberies, and I think that's bullshit.The squatters did alot of good, the serious ones, that is.I guess I lived in another reality from you, because I also remember Skinner squats and guys like Harley Flanagan rolling with 40 skins, fucking with EVERYONE in their way. I remember people who lived in fear IN THEIR OWN BUILDINGS because dealers had taken over the doorways/hallways and the residents dared not complain. I remember hordes of crackhead zombies walking around...some pathetic- some violent and aggressive.There was an enormous amount of beauty and creativity in the old EV...and there was ALOT of thug bullshit.Maybe the two sides fed each other and fed off of each other.And yes, the media blows things up, but applauding criminal violence won't save what's left of the EV. And trying to explain away violent felons as oppressed "rebels" is bullshit stacked 10 stories high. I've had the displeasure of working with convicted felons, and not a single one of those guys is heroic in any sense of the word. And the ones who are old enough to have learned lessons from their bid don't make empty excuses for their violent behaviour, and neither should you.

Caleo I actually agree with most of what you said in your last post.I still think we need to do what we can to help neighborhood kids in trouble because sending them upstate is going to end any chance that they can turn their lives around.From what you said it is clear that you lived it and I got respect for that. I am surprised that you did not address the person who called people who live on D animals. I live on D so I am one of the animals I guess. I also did a year in Federal Prison for demonstrating against nuclear waste dumping on poor balck people in SC and am a Vietnam era Vet. I know about the prison system and it is a racist dehumanizing violent place that only creates smarter and more violent people. You might think that I do what I do for attention and maybe you are right but I do believe in the things I do and my friends will tell you I am a pretty stand up guy. Although you wished harm on me I have no such feelings about you and like I said you have my respect. I was one of Frenchy and Bernacle Bills and Bobby Apocalypse's best friends and I watched their backs and they watched mine. Peace to you and yours. Gringo Loco aka John Penley

For the record John...I never wished harm on you at any point.The guy who called folks on D animals hoped you would get jumped, but I'm not him.And your thoughtful reply makes me think you've got a good heart...So, respect to you as well.

For the record, I never wished harm on Mr Penley. I mocked his delusional pity for the animals (Yes I choose to call people who fuck with the elderly and fuck with other poor working-people, almost always WITHOUT excuse) Animals. Actually, Rabid Animals cause animals dont destroy each other without a purpose. While Mr Penley regurgitates meaningless pseudo-liberal drivel, I encourage him to walk around the Avenues on Halloween night especially when the ANIMALS mindlessy and wantonly attack and distroy because they think that is what they are supposed to do.Mr Penly, write back MSunday night if you get home in a fairly reasonable state and tell us how your mindless pseudo-liberal drivel helped you to survive.Dont judge me. I had the perverse luck to grow up with that garbage and being the recipient of their fury.

Story : Standing near the door of my restaurant on Ave B looking out the window on a Friday night. See a stack of east village news papers go flying through the air. Stack of newspapers hit an older man square in the back. Then I see the special board . . . MY SPECIAL BOARD , go flying through the air. It hits the old man as well. I run outside to see what the F*$k is going on. See group of 12 to 15 year old punks chasing man , cursing at him. I yell at the kids and tell them to leave the old man alone and get the hell away from my restaurant. They stare me down , call me a white ni**&r , flash a knife at me and tell me they'll be back to get me later. Turns out the old man ( who was african american) was a local homeless man who had asked these punks for some change. That was his crime. THESE KIDS ARE PUNK LOWLIFE TRASH. The man they attacked was an east villager and he was homeless. They laughed at him , hurt him , and called him names. If I hadn't run out there we'd probably be reading in the Post about how they set him on fire.

OWR That is twice you have threatened me and you can say they are not threats but if I said the same thing about you twice you would be on the phone to the NYPD. Not me I called an old friend Navy who is an X Seal and he will be with me all night and if you are a cop yourself the director of the National Lawyers Guild will be at Tompkins Square Park. I cover my bases and I suggest you not carry out your threats. Peace JP PS I lived on the LES for over 30 years so I can handle myself as well.

Singed, a neighborhood bartender who knows you better than you know your self-involved selves.

PS: I grew up downtown too. And the neighborhood always had its share of reactionary creeps. Keeping it real? The guys complaining about the "animals" are the kind of scumbags who didn't do a damn thing when the landlords burned the neighborhood out, when the police colluded with the heroin trade, when the squats were busted up and police brutalized the whole fucking neighborhood. Mostly racist white ethnics and lumpen puerto ricans. Plenty. Dope dealers and wannabe pigs.

I have no love for bullies, whatever their background. And the destruction of the lower east side so a bunch of narcissist trust funders, entitled finance douches and speculators could jerk off in yet another "alternative" neighborhood is a fucking tragedy. My building was full of creators. Mostly broke, often goofy or deluded — but alive.

Now? It's like the end of a coke binge. Fuck you rich pieces of shit whining about the "animals".

I'm not a thief and I don't think the whole world owes me shit. I've been mugged. I lost $20. Every month I have to pay my landlord 65% of my income.

AM NY will have a story in Friday's edition of the paper about our Halloween Protest in Tompkins Square Park. They just called me to clarify what I meant by "undesireables in the neighborhood" according to CB3 committee members and others who want to cut back on Park concerts and bring cops with sound meters to the park. You will have to pick up the paper tomorrow to find out what I said. See Y'all on Sunday. Whose fukin park ? Our fukin Park ?

@Anonymous. If some young kids were beaten up by some preppies on Park & 75th for urinating the street there wouldn't be an outcry of "retribution"! What type of twisted, Marxist logic are you trying to espouse?! @ShutupHooker had the most sensible statement so far. I hope that New Yorkers with cash to spend continue to patronize the LES & EV to encourage new stores to open and renovation of tenements that may have a blend of low income and market rate. I'm waiting for some "retribution" by the so "rich **sholes" that start tasering an assailant that wants to rip off their Ipod! If you don't like your lot in life, then improve your grades, go to college and earn a well paying job!

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